(Nov. 03, 2009 3:14 PM)Bey Brad Wrote: KoD, what do you think of Fallout 2 Vs 3?
In general, I had more fun playing through Fallout 3, mostly because of the shooter element along with how much exploring you can do.
With Fallout 2, you just travel from one city to the other, with a few random encounters in the middle. Other than the cities themselves, there isn't much to explore. You still need to find the settlements in the overworld map first to access them, but it just isn't the same as the traveling through the wasteland in Fallout 3 in real time, while coming across buildings, caves, sewers, underground tunnels, raider camps, etc...
On the other hand, Fallout 3 is kinda broken gameplay wise. It's still tough early on, but that doesn't last long. Some differences between the two:
- Obvious, but important: Fallout 2 is an isometric view point and click turn based RPG, while Fallout 3 is a 1st/3rd person open world RPG, where you can fight in real time or by using VATS
- You can basically 100 every skill without much thinking in F3;
- The S.P.E.C.I.A.L. stats aren't as important in F3. In F2 for example, there are Strength requirements for certain weapons;
- Most items like weapons weight less in F3 (ammo doesn't even weight anything, you can carry thousands of rounds of each type without worry), heck I carry like over 20 different weapons with me in F3, while I usually had to stick with two in F2 and also limited ammo;
- In Fallout 2 there were also some more stats like AC (armor class) which determines the chance of being hit, ammo modifiers depending on the weapon like AP (Armor Piercing - does less damage, but is more likely to pierce through armor)/JHP (Jacketed Hollow Point - more dmg, less chance of piercing armor) some of which also had AC mods making it more likely to hit, Sequence which determines who goes first in the turn, etc...
- Armor is a lot more important in F2, while in F3 you can do fine without power armor. Different armors would each have a certain AC rating along with resistances to Normal/Laser/Fire/Plasma/Explosive/Pulse damage. You also can't loot armor off of corpses;
- Would it have made sense to loot a full suit of power armor from a guy you just tore apart? Well, it does now in F3 because you can repair items, depending on your Repair skill. Using weapons will lower their condition, which also lowers their effectiveness/damage and makes them more likely to jam if it gets really low until they break and become unusable as well as armor loosing its damage resistance progressively the more hits you take. I thought this was an awesome gameplay mechanic and it sure as hell did make things harder early on!
- In F2 you only get a perk every 3 (or 4) levels, while in F3 you get one every level;
- VATS also made stuff easier in F3 and unlike F2, even early on you'd be able to attack 3-4 times before running out of Action Points (later you could do 5-6 times), which regenerate quickly, besides, even though you play 1st/3rd person, you don't even have to aim. For F2, if you wanted to access the inventory to use a stimpack to heal yourself during combat, that would cost APs, walking during combat would cost APs as well. It was more restrictive with the combat. With F3, most of this doesn't apply since there aren't even turns, you can shoot/run around in free aim and access your inventory as many times as you want and use whichever items as many times as you want without even worrying about APs (accessing the inventory is basically pausing the game).
You're basically overpowered in F3, while in F2 you have to manage everything more carefully, items, skill points and perks, so you can't he good at everything (well, you can, but only after you finish the game and visit a certain guy...), which is more along the lines of what RPGs should be like. Fallout 2 is more of a hardcore rpg. Some of that stuff just doesn't translate well into 1st/3rd person perspective real time combat.
I guess it depends on the person. I liked both, but despite being broken, I still enjoyed Fallout 3 more. There's just so much more to explore and do and the DLCs also helped expanding the Fallout universe. I liked the atmosphere in it more as well (really made you feel lonely in some places, or creeped me up in others). There's nothing like traveling through the wasteland, spotting places and creatures from afar or suddenly stumbling upon them, sometimes even getting jumped from behind by beasts like Deathclaws or a Yao Guai and trying to run while shooting them or ambushing a bunch of raiders from afar while in Sneak mode and taking them out with scoped Sniper headshots. Or waiting around a corner for all of them to come running at you with pool cues and sledgehammers and blasting them off with a combat shotgun. Setting up mines so when they come running after you, they get blown to pieces. Watching random creatures fight eachother while in sneak mode, or as a single Giant Radscorpion takes out a small town of settlers...
I would've liked to see some of the stuff from F2 make the jump to F3, like each town having its own music (there're all the same, but then again we also got radio in F3), some of the stats like ammo modifiers, more specific armor resistances for all armors, having more followers depending on Charisma, having some kind of vehicle to travel in, knowing what happened to some of the characters after all those years, etc, but it was still a great experience nonetheless.
I've yet to play through the original Fallout. I'm kinda intimidated, apparently, you only have 1 year in the game time to complete the main story. You had 13 years for Fallout 2 and basically forever for Fallout 3.
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